Has Superman ever Defeated Batman?

I was thinking about this the other day, and I couldn't think of an example where he had. I've never been a big DC reader, so it's mostly come up in the bigger graphic novels I've read (Kingdom Come, The Dark Knight Returns).

Has there ever been an example where the two have come to blows and Superman has been the clear winner?

When people say: "Batman can kick Superman's ass" they really mean one of three things:

1. I like Batman more and think he can do anything.2. I think Batman can win a one-sided battle where he's prepared and Superman isn't; and I've read comics like that.3. I think Batman can beat Superman under specific circumstances, but all things being equal, Superman will almost always win.

With Case 1, there's no arguing with them. With Case 3, I think the individual is reasonable enough and there's no need to force them to say Superman will ALWAYS win unless we're suffering from a bit of Case 1 ourselves, but with a Superman bent. I think a mixture of Case 2 and a little bit of 1 is the predominant viewpoint of people who say it.

The thing is, they typically don't acknowledge the inequality in preparation or technology... it's almost always a contrived circumstance to bring about a Bat-victory by the skin of Bruce's teeth. Even if they do, they put their faith in Batman's preparation and planning (and sometimes technology) to rule the day. The following addresses that (reposted):

Despite the incredibly presistant and wide-spread belief that Batman has a dozen plans up his sleeve to take out Superman, historically it's been proven otherwise again and again. Let's take some examples:

DKR - Bats, after 20 years of planning, gets his ribs broke, his fancy suit torn to shreds, suffers a heart attack, and ends up in the ground. His entire plan relies on Superman holding back and NOT simply unplugging Bruce from his lamp-post or disabling him from space (if Supes really just wanted Bruce to turn himself in, rather than getting into a dangerous fist fight)... in other words, poor writing for Supes (out of character motivation, out of character intellect/tactics), who could have undid the Bat's plan easily.

Hush - Bats breaks his hand & resorts to thug-level hostage tactics, while admiting he doesn't stand a chance. Honestly, he just gets in one good punch (that breaks his hand) shortly after, Supes smashes through the street and effortlessly lifts a car in each hand, no worse for wear. His plan needlessly puts himself at risk and relied entirely on Clark holding back/being good, which he had no logical grounds on which the make that assumption... having a "gut feeling" that Clark can resist mind control does not constitute a good plan.

Red Son - Dies. Despite all his prep, he didn't account for Superman's allies, which he has in spades and certainly on a different power-level than- say- the Bat Family. If anything is true of Supes, it's that he has many friends that would readily risk life and limb for his sake- heck, in the regular universe, Batman considers himself one of that number... any plan meant to take Supes out has to take into account his allies, friends, family, robots, pets, etc.

Babel - Years of planning on how to stop a rogue Superman... result: an expensive synthetic rock that makes Superman MORE powerful (and doesn't even prevent him from using his powers with surgical precision). Wow. Brilliant.

Superman/Batman #2 - Owned. This is in Batman's home turf, the ideal situation to combat Superman and to enact all the theoretical plans his fans have long believed he has against a rogue Superman... but the result? Bruce isn't even Future Supes's target yet he's a breath away from death if not for a save from present-day Supes.

Lex Luthor:Man of Steel - Batman with kryptonite and prep, defeated handily by Superman. Arguably one of the most realistic portrayals of how Supes could still defeat Batman without instantly killing him regardless of Bat-prep.

Superman: King of The World - Batman with prep and kryptonite fails to stop Superman from being able to crush his throat... only with the intervention of Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter is Supes stopped. Here we see danger of Superman with limited prep, the legions of his similarly powered Superman robots.

Sacrifice - Again, Batman, king of protocols, the man entrusted with the Kryptonite ring as a symbol of trust and the express responsibility of stopping Superman should he go rogue by Superman himself... finds himself in said situation and instead of pulling out "always prepared anti-Supes plan" finds himself beaten to near death saved only by the Plot Gods.

Infinite Crisis - After the last beating, you'd think Batman would create more comprehensive plans for taking out Superman and/or Superman-class enemies. Granted Kal-L is probably levels above them, but in terms of Anti-SuperBrick Planning, once again, Bruce fails... his entire defense the Kryptonite ring. Even if it were Kal-El and not Kal-L, it's highly questionable whether the ring alone would have been able to stop a motivated rogue Superman considering Supes has wielded the ring himself when fighting other Super-persons. If Batman were truly the master of planning and prep, this certainly should have been taken into consideration.

Final score: Bat Plans Zip; Supes nine of nine.

The only cases where Batman has been able to possibly get a leg up on Supes are when he has acted like a villain and held hostages or lead an assault against an unsuspecting Supes- hardly a feat (consider: who amongst us, with Batman's fortune and training, intimate knowledge of Superman as an ally, and even express consent from said target, WOULDN'T be able to come up with an attack plan against an unsuspecting Supes?). In any case where Supes has had the opportunity to fight back he has either won or been defeated by bad writing.

(taken from another forum poster who's hand I'd love to shake for typing this up)

Captain has it spot on, to be honest. I never understood how this debate ever lasted for very long. It's kinda why I don't like Superman, actually. The guy's pretty much infallible. I remember taking a read of the book where Superman landed in Russia instead of the USA. That was interesting.

Captain has it spot on, to be honest. I never understood how this debate ever lasted for very long. It's kinda why I don't like Superman, actually. The guy's pretty much infallible. I remember taking a read of the book where Superman landed in Russia instead of the USA. That was interesting.

Superman is my favorite character and while I do agree that he should be in the hands of better writers (like some of the guys at Marvel) I believe he's still very fallible and has admitted so himself. A lot of his weaknesses lies with his personal struggles regarding the morals he was raised with among other things. Stories revealing his weaknesses and character evolution are however rare. :(

RunRiot seems to have the correct attitude, and strikes me as the kinda guy who would be more then happy to fill you in if you had any questions on Champions Lore if you wanted to make a character that 'fits in', which is why I will refer to him as the Lore KGB *wink* If he don't know it, he'll probably be able to find it!----Drax40K

Well I do love batman, but there is no denying that Superman is stronger...faster....and invincible..where as batman, could die from a single bullet, or a single punch from superman. Now to me it doesn't matter if Batman ever wins, the fact that he continuous gets into fights with a demi-god alien and comes out alive and then and goes and does it again? All that says is bada**..

The bats is clearly the most insane superhero...in fact hes not even a SUPER hero, hes just a hero. Most superheros have an ability, Batman doesn't, people seem to forget hes human, hes a regular eccentric billionaire who likes to go dress up like a bat and beat the crap out of bad guys.

Where as superman, well at least hes not fast..oh hes faster then a speeding bullet? Oh well at least he cant shoot lasers out of his eyes...OH COME ON! Ok ok, well at least he cant fly...YES, HE CANT! oh..come on he can jump over skyscrapers?? Whats his deal, well at least you can kill him...not without kyrptonite? WTF!

See, superman has got too much goin for him for em to like him, Batman actually puts his neck on the line in my opinion, Batman could get killed by a random thug...Superman would need a super genius with a army to get killed.

Captain has it spot on, to be honest. I never understood how this debate ever lasted for very long. It's kinda why I don't like Superman, actually. The guy's pretty much infallible. I remember taking a read of the book where Superman landed in Russia instead of the USA. That was interesting.

Superman is my favorite character and while I do agree that he should be in the hands of better writers (like some of the guys at Marvel) I believe he's still very fallible and has admitted so himself. A lot of his weaknesses lies with his personal struggles regarding the morals he was raised with among other things. Stories revealing his weaknesses and character evolution are however rare. :(

But if you look hard enough, they are out there. :)

P.S. Superman has been KILLED by Doomsday. :)

To me, Matt Wragner in Trinity caught Superman perfectly, as well as the first volume of Superman/Batman.

To me, the best way to "get" superman is to write the farmboy, not the GOD that he is.

RunRiot seems to have the correct attitude, and strikes me as the kinda guy who would be more then happy to fill you in if you had any questions on Champions Lore if you wanted to make a character that 'fits in', which is why I will refer to him as the Lore KGB *wink* If he don't know it, he'll probably be able to find it!----Drax40K

This is one of the major problems I've had with DC continuity and their shared world. The heros are just so disparate that putting them together is incongruous and just doesn't fit.

the only way, as a reader, I could reconcile the various batman/superman issues, was to consider gotham batman and jla/metropolis batman, and by extension gotham superman and metropolis superman, as different entities. Because really, they shouldn't coexist, and you end up with major major issues like this.

That and why superman doesn't just single-handedly clean up gotham, since he's friggin' superman after all.

Marvel has the issue, but to a lesser extent, with the Punisher. They just handle it better, in my humble opinion.

Oh and to the topic: this is hearsay/recollection, but my friend states he read a JLA story arc where superman did the "I'm pissed but not going to beat you yet" on batman, who proceeded to whip out a pair of kryptonite knuckles and beat him.

However, he doesn't have an issue # or anything, so consider it speculative and potentially apocryphal.

Well I do love batman, but there is no denying that Superman is stronger...faster....and invincible..where as batman, could die from a single bullet, or a single punch from superman. Now to me it doesn't matter if Batman ever wins, the fact that he continuous gets into fights with a demi-god alien and comes out alive and then and goes and does it again? All that says is bada**..

The bats is clearly the most insane superhero...in fact hes not even a SUPER hero, hes just a hero. Most superheros have an ability, Batman doesn't, people seem to forget hes human, hes a regular eccentric billionaire who likes to go dress up like a bat and beat the crap out of bad guys.

Where as superman, well at least hes not fast..oh hes faster then a speeding bullet? Oh well at least he cant shoot lasers out of his eyes...OH COME ON! Ok ok, well at least he cant fly...YES, HE CANT! oh..come on he can jump over skyscrapers?? Whats his deal, well at least you can kill him...not without kyrptonite? WTF!

See, superman has got too much goin for him for em to like him, Batman actually puts his neck on the line in my opinion, Batman could get killed by a random thug...Superman would need a super genius with a army to get killed.

...I here by declare batman most psychotic and bada** hero..

That's a respectable reason to like Batman over Superman but I just hate it when people use it to diss Superman.

Yes, Superman is one of the most powerful superhero in the universe. He can probably take out 90% of his enemies AND friends. Why would I admire a hero that's so powerful over someone that's just human?

Answer: The fact that with all that power, influence and charisma he has, he still chooses to try to do the right thing and gain people's respect by caring for them, not dominating them. To have such power can easily corrupt anyone, imposing their will as judge, jury and executioner. Superman however still tries to be an example, avoids killing, avoids torture, and even when his loved ones die, he still tries to keep his head in the right place. He still chooses to acknowledge the two human farmers in the midwest as his parents, even though they didn't give birth to him. He still carries the values that they taught him when he was a child. This why I admire Superman over Batman. :)

RunRiot seems to have the correct attitude, and strikes me as the kinda guy who would be more then happy to fill you in if you had any questions on Champions Lore if you wanted to make a character that 'fits in', which is why I will refer to him as the Lore KGB *wink* If he don't know it, he'll probably be able to find it!----Drax40K

RunRiot seems to have the correct attitude, and strikes me as the kinda guy who would be more then happy to fill you in if you had any questions on Champions Lore if you wanted to make a character that 'fits in', which is why I will refer to him as the Lore KGB *wink* If he don't know it, he'll probably be able to find it!----Drax40K

Oh well never really read GL anyways, so i guess I wouldn't of known that

and whats wrong with all star batman? i find his psychotic portrayal of Batman to if anything be more realistic for that character. Hes a billionaire who saw his parents killed before his eyes and has been spending his entire life scaring the crap out of criminals and beating them.

Gotham is one of the worst places in the world, no mans land, the cops, the politicians and everyone else is corrupt, and yet Bats keeps trying to take on everyone, im pretty sure it take a raving lunatic to do the job...